Tuesday, 5 February 2013

Island Games Line-up

The
Island Games Association’s decision to take their biennial multi-sports
tournaments out of Europe for the first time this year means that just four
teams will compete in the football event.The
only confirmed entrants are the hosts Bermuda, the Falkland Islands, Greenland
and a side from the Norwegian isle of Froya.

IGA
regulations state that to host a team sport there must be at least six
entrants, but an exception is being made in 2013. Island Games spokesman Jon
Beard says: “We have left the door open and are working on at least more team
[but] we don’t need this extra team for the tournament to go ahead.”

The
Cayman Islands had reportedly been intending to send a team and seem the most
likely late entrant out of the IGA’s 24 members.

The
2007 winners Gibraltar are staying at home as they prepare for their
long-running application to join UEFA goes to a vote at the European governing
body’s annual congress in London on May 24.

For
the other swathe of teams that stayed at home, the travel costs of getting to
the British Atlantic territory provided just too much.

The
holders and last hosts the Isle of Wight (pictured above playing Gibraltar at East Cowes in 2011) will not be travelling. Jersey – the
only team to win the tournament on three separate occasions, in 1993, 1997 and
2009 – are staying at home. Guernsey won the tournament twice in 2001 and 2003
but are competing in the English Combined Counties Premier Division.

After
being disqualified for poor on-field behavior in 2011, Rhodes were not expected
to even be invited but a tournament that in recent years had regularly featured
a field of 16 has been decimated.

Even
the participation of the Falkland Islands had been in doubt at one point.To
send a football side from the isolated south Atlantic outpost costs around
£3,000 per player and the territory’s government is understood to have stepped
in with £40,000 contribution towards travel costs for the Falkland party.

Ian
Betts, who has replaced 2011 coach Richard Franks as manager of the Falkland
football squad, also had a more prosaic problem: first choice goalkeeper Ben Hoyles
(pictured below in action in 2011 against Gotland) initially said he would not be going to Hamilton.

That
would be a blow to a side that has been unbeaten so far in their preparations for Bermuda in
a series of warm-up matches against sides from the armed forces on the islands.Hoyles,
the first choice Falkland keeper two years ago in the Isle of Wight - is understood to have
had a change of mind, but Adam Glanville – the St Helenian who has been one of
his side’s outstanding defender in recent Island Games tournaments – is not
expected to travel.

Patrick
Watts, former chairman of the Falkland Islands Football League, says: “The
games have been against Military teams at the Base so nothing too spectacular.It
is difficult to find a competitive match these days as there are not as many
Army men here as there was previously and the RAF personnel do not seem to be
as keen as the Army and Navy in terms of playing football.”

When
the Island Games comes back to Europe in 2015, a revival is likely in terms of
entrants but this year should at least produce some new medalists. The Falkland
Islands, Greenland and Froya have never been close to a medal at the Island Games. That
willchange this year.

This blog is about those footballing nations not recognised by FIFA. I've written about them in my book, "Outcasts! The Lands That FIFA Forgot", which was shortlisted for NSC football book of the year award in the 2008 and is published by Know The Score Books.

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With forewords by Adrian Chiles and David Conn."Outcasts! The Lands That FIFA Forgot" examines the much tarnished reputation of FIFA, the governing body of world football, and just how they justify the exclusion of some 'nations' while welcoming others - either for reasons of political expediency, or because FIFA just believed they could not compete with the likes of Montserrat on the world stage.

REVIEWS FOR OUTCASTSOutcasts! is a must-read for all football fans - Sporting Life

Excellent - Scotland on Sunday

Menary is an enthusiast with a talent for getting the best out of his interviewees and a keen eye for the encapsulating episode - Daily Telegraph

As good as it gets - Birmingham Post

Buy this - The Times

Lively, informative - The Independent on Sunday

Thought provoking questions about the nature of national identity - Four Four Two

One book that might intrigue the discerning reader - Sunday Telegraph

Menary is an admirably sure-footed guide ... he never loses sight of the human stories ... a gentle meditation not merely on the power of football, but also on what it means to be a country - Jonathan Wilson

BY THE SAME AUTHORGB United? British Olympic Football and the end of the amateur dream (Pitch 2010)

Menary does an outstanding job. GB United? is a historical tome telling a story that has been forgotten and overlooked elsewhere. This story is as much about a class struggle in twentieth century Britain as anything else, but in this case it was a struggle that the ruling class were always going to lose.Those that ran the game at the start of the twentieth century may well look at modern football and wonder what on earth it has become, but GB United? tells a part of the story that is seldom looked at elsewhere with a keen eye for historical detail, a dry sense of humour and a mixture of disdain and respect for those that ended up shaping many of the paths that modern football would end up taking - Twohundredpercent

Exemplary research, grasp of his material and eye for a quirky fact keep up the interest - Independent on Sunday

Menary carefully explains how amateurism or 'shamateurism' gradually became unacceptable in this country, with everyone being declared just 'players' in 1974.He recounts not only the sad decline of Vivian Woodward, a superb centre-forward and a member of the British team in 1908 and 1912, but also the exploits of Pegasus, who galvanised the amateur game in the early 1950s. It is a valuable contribution to football literature - The Olympian